


We're Low on Self-Esteem so We Run on Gasoline

by Acai (orphan_account)



Category: Undertale
Genre: Abandonment, Alcoholism, Alternate Universe, Bad Dreams, Breaking and Entering, Business, But They are Not Mom And Dad Together, Child Abandonment, Codependency, DJ Napstablook, Dysfunctional Family, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, Family Bonding, Family Feels, Flowey is Asriel, Fluff, Foster homes, Found Family, Goat Mom Is Best Mom, Grillby is Dad, Homelessness, Human AU, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Child Neglect, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Minor Swearing, Multi, Narrator is Sans - Freeform, Night Terrors, Nonbinary Frisk, Older brother Sans, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, POV Sans, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Road Trips, Snowdin can be ghetto, Toriel is Mom, Toriel is a teacher, Triggering Subjects, Violence, Younger Brother Papyrus, fostertale, fostertale AU, implied/referenced child abandonment, lgbtq+, nonbinary chara, puns, real world AU, sans-game au, second person writing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-29
Updated: 2016-02-01
Packaged: 2018-05-16 23:22:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,347
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5844937
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/Acai
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the town of Snowdin there’s a restaurant called Grillby’s, a lake called Waterfall and an abandoned building filled with a group of kids who call themselves the Eights. In the group called the Eights there’s eight kids who’ve been on the streets as long as they can remember and who all have twisted and complex stories of their own. In the group called the Eights there’s a boy named Sans, who really didn’t want to be a good person and bring those kids back with him. </p>
<p>He brought them back to the abandoned building anyway. </p>
<p>or</p>
<p>The one where Sans and Co. are all homeless and runaway teenagers on the streets and Sans finds Frisk and Chara and can’t help but try and protect them from the harsh streets.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Our Memories Depend on a Faulty Camera in Our Minds

**Author's Note:**

> This chapter is really just a test. I've got all the chapters planned out and have some pre-written already, but TBH I only came up with this idea yesterday. I love it so much, though, and just had to do it. If people like it I'll definitely keep going with it, so if you do enjoy it leave a comment below <3 Chapter One is basically just introducing things, though, and is told in italics because it's mostly a series of flash-backs and thoughts.

          _The building was old, practically rotting and falling apart as it was, and there wasn’t enough of you there to really keep it running. You probably should have seen it coming, but you were only seven and you didn’t know much about these things. How were you supposed to know that everything simple was coming to an end? How in the world were you supposed to know that that place, the place that **was** your entire world then, was going to turn into nothing more than an old building left abandoned for rats? Of course you hadn’t known what was happening. _

_When the government came to shut the place down because the woman running the foster care building hadn’t been paying the bills he’d counted you all up, asking you questions and talking to the woman about things you were too little to understand and don’t recall. She fed you all dinner that night and told you that you couldn’t live there anymore. You’d never liked her, harsh and blunt, but you’d liked living there in that foster home. There’d been food, anyway, and you’d never been anywhere else._

_You went to bed in your bunk bed that you shared with your little brother, Papyrus, in a room where all the kids were crammed together. The next morning the woman told you to pack your things up. There were twelve of you there, all in the same room, but you’d never been bothered by that, either. You hadn’t thought anything of it at the time. So you’d listened to her and gathered your things (the few things that you had, anyway). She’d taken some of the kids places, other foster homes or shelters that the government had placed them in. If there’s one thing that you did know, though, it’s that the government is lazy. They never did finish their job, giving you all new places to go to. Four of you were left. You, Papyrus and two others you don’t remember were left standing there on the doorstep of the foster home on your own._

_You never liked the woman who ran the building._

_You hadn’t much liked the other two kids who had been left, but they’d been as close to each other and didn’t care much about you, either. Papyrus was so little then that of course he didn’t remember it, but there you were, seven years old and alone on a doorstep with a baggy jacket and a backpack holding two things. The first of those things was a note written in a messy scrawl, a note that was concise and blunt and written by your father—a man called W.D Gaster that you couldn’t help but hold a grudge against. The note said only your first names and how old you were, stating your birthdays and that the other possession, a long red scarf, belonged to your mother. You kept both of those things because, even if you would never admit it, you liked to stay up and entertain the thought that you did, in fact, have parents out there someplace. Two people who must have cared about each other even just a little bit—two people who at least knew that you existed. Maybe in some other timeline, in some other world, they would have been the two people who’d cared about you both enough to raise you. You would have shared dinners at a table and you would have been driven to school, you would have told them about your day and they would have been real, actual parents. You couldn’t help but entertain that thought sometimes, when it was late at night and everyone else was asleep by you lay awake and ran your fingers along the scarf._

_Papyrus, little Papyrus, had only been three at the time. You’d given him the baggy jacket, leading him down the street after you’d each sat on that doorstep for enough days to realize bitterly that nobody was coming back for you, that nobody cared about the two orphans who sat on the steps of an abandoned building waiting for somebody to come and pick them up and take them home. Besides, your stomach had hurt so much that you couldn’t bear the thought of waiting any longer for someone to take pity on the two of you and offer you food. You hauled Papyrus up and brought him with you while you scavenged around for food._

_You ended up picking through trash cans, shivering in the cold of the night and being soaked to the bone every time that it rained for another long time, so long that you were eventually ten and Papyrus was then six and that was normal to both of you. You’d become good enough at looting through things that you’d found a winter coat each and food enough that you hadn’t yet starved, which was the goal. You looked out for Papyrus and in return you got to see him happy and perky, still bounding about places even if you were orphaned and homeless. Sometimes you wondered if he even knew, if he even knew that he didn’t have a home or a family or food enough to eat every day. You wondered if he knew that not everyone lived the way that you did. You kind of hoped that he didn’t, and if he did you hoped to God that he wouldn’t ever let that get to him. You only worked harder to make him happy when you thought about those things._

_You walked places a lot. You never stayed in the same town for more than a week at a time, unwilling to risk being caught by someone who’d grown to recognize the two of you on the streets. If that happened then someone would be called and you would risk being separated. So many bad things could happen in foster care, you’d known that even as a ten year old, and you’d been so scared of the thought that you’d dragged your brother around with you everywhere._

_Eventually you ended up in a town an entire state away from where the old foster home was. The town was cheery enough, and Papyrus had adored the little quirks about it. The town itself was named Snowdin, a name that allowed you to make many puns, and in the town of Snowdin was a lake called Waterfall, a place that Paps had been head over heels for. The land around the lake was decorated with neon blue lights that lit the whole lake up each night. The water was always fresh enough that you’d be fine if you drank it, somehow._

_For some reason you ended up staying in Snowdin. You were careful to stay in a patch of forest during the day, slipping out at night to rummage and look for things to eat or wear or use._

_One of the nights that you’d spent looking for food, you’d stumbled upon a restaurant called Grillby’s that was run by a young man who had a habit of throwing out food that was still good enough to eat, which you always brought back with you. You ended up always stopping there for food first, rummaging quietly through his bins before checking everyone else’s. You made sure he never saw you looking through his trash for food, but you were fairly sure that he had a pretty decent idea that **someone** was going through it. He began putting out a little extra for you, even though he had no idea who he was putting out more food for. He stopped throwing it right in the trash can, too, and instead began putting the still somewhat-fresh food in bags that he’d throw next to his bins. You appreciated him quite a bit for that particular act of kindness._

_You’d lingered in Snowdin for so long that, even if you made sure to sleep different places each night, you never did entertain the thought of actually leaving the town for good. You enjoyed watching the people that bustled about there, if anything. Most of them were unbelievably nice, anyway. Not that you’d ever talked to a single one of them—but you’d seen them talking to each other and people who would visit the little town. They were nice to everyone they met, an act which confused you just a little bit, but one that made them all fascinating to peep on from where you’d linger in the park or by the lake called Waterfall._

_And one night outside of Grillby’s you met a girl dressed in all blue clothes. All her clothes were tattered and her hair, which was held back in a ponytail, was a mess. Her pants looked like they’d been white at one point._

_When you’d first seen her she’d looked as if she were about to run, then fight you, and then she settled back into a calm stance, watching you and your brother from the other side of the alleyway._

_You didn’t say anything to her and she didn’t say anything to you, but you continued running into her outside of Grillby’s often enough that eventually your brother introduced himself and you learned that she was called Undyne. When you’d met her you’d been eleven. When you’d met her, she’d looked the same age._

_She wasn’t the only kid you ever ran into that was homeless, either. Not too long after that you met a girl named Muffet and a sad boy who always wore a black, droopy hat who probably had a real name but who called himself Napstablook.  You’d told him that Napstablook was a mouthful and took to calling him Blook instead._

_By the time that you were thirteen and Papyrus was nine there was a group of eight of you who ran into each other now and again and whom you would go as far as to call friends. You’d cleverly started calling yourselves The Eights, since there was eight of you and none of you had gone to school long enough to have had much other inspiration. You hung around each other sometimes, but never for too long, because a group of kids hanging out in a park might look normal, but it’s also very hard to miss._

_Undyne and Alphys had found a biggish house by a pond a little ways into the woods. There was a road that led to it, but the whole road was overgrown and so covered in moss that you’d never seen a single person drive on it. The house wasn’t great, dark and old and cold, but it was a house and it would keep them dry when it rained and it would always be warmer than it was outside. Besides, it had a fireplace._

_Most of The Eights had ended up there eventually, sharing the house during the night and leaving the house to go find some food for themselves during the day. You went there sometimes, when it rained or when it was far too cold to stay outside. In exchange you’d drop food off for them the next day as a ‘thanks for letting me use you’ kind of thing. They never complained, though, and for that you’ve always been kind of grateful._

_You never learn the names of anyone else, though. The streets here are crawling with homeless kids, you think. It’s odd in itself, that the place with the most homeless kids is a town filled with wonderful people who would probably have taken them in if they knew. But, then again, it’s probably because everyone here is nice that they stay. There’s something about Snowdin that makes it hard to leave and there’s something about it that attracts kids like you like flies. You never were sure if you planned to stay in this town—you still aren’t, as a matter of fact. But you’re here now and don’t plan on going anywhere any time soon. You don’t see why you would, anyway. This place has places to hide, places to get food, places to get water and it’s got a place to go when it gets too cold or rainy. All in all it’s homeless-kid-heaven. You’ve been here in the town of Snowdin, hiding, for six years now. You’re sixteen, Papyrus is twelve. You live in the town of Snowdin by the lake named Waterfall. You live there, not in the sense that it’s your home in any way, but in the sense that in that place you’re alive. The place keeps you alive, supplies you, and sometimes you forget that you haven’t always lived on the streets of Snowdin. There are better places to be, of course, but there’s worse places to be, too._

_If you have to stay put some place, you’re willing to make that place here._


	2. You Search Endlessly for Permanent Happiness is a Temporary World

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Like all my other stories, I'll probably start off updating every day for a week or so and then I'll start taking a week. Thanks for all the support on the last chapter though, it definitely helps me stop procrastinating so I can get chapters out more quickly UvU

You’re warm where you are, curled up under something that’s radiating heat. When’s the last time you were this warm? You aren’t sure, but it feels nice. You don’t really feel like getting up any time soon.

“Sans!”

You had a dream last night. You can’t remember what it was about, but you do remember that it was a good dream. You think it was about something that wasn’t real, about full stomachs and warm and shelter from the rain each night. You shrug it off—why dwell on a dream you can’t even remember?

“Sans?”

Still, it was a good dream. Sometimes you have those dreams and try not to wake up from them. In your dreams you’re standing in a warm building with water and food and people you call family. In your dreams you stretch your arms out and try so, so hard to grab the whole thing, ensnare it in your hold and never let it go. Your fists close around air and the dream dissipates around you. Every time you try and catch the dreams, try to live in them…

“Sans, wake _up!_ ” You peel your eyes open. Papyrus is sprawled out over you, frowning slightly. “I’m hungry!” He whines, poking your side. It must have rained last night because the ground is wet and cold beneath you. You aren’t a fan of the whole ‘homeless people sleeping on benches’ stereotype. You much prefer sleeping in dense patches of forest where people aren’t going to walk by you and try and call Child Protective Services. You’ve been in foster homes before—once is enough for you. Besides, you know what goes on in foster care. They split siblings up all the time. You aren’t sure what you’d do without Papyrus. You aren’t sure what Papyrus would do without you. He’s only twelve, you don’t like to think about a world where he could be torn from you and shoved into a household with strangers when it’s just been him and you since he was three. Sometimes he’s the happiest kid you’ve ever seen, even if you don’t have a home or food or family. Sometimes you aren’t sure if he _knows_ he’s homeless. You get an urge to look him in the eye and say, ‘Papyrus, you do realize that your life _sucks,_ right?’ You never do, of course. You’re pretty sure he knows very well that his life isn’t going too well. Sometimes he’s the happiest kid on Earth, but sometimes he’s the most mature twelve year old you’ve ever seen.

His face grows old and matured, he doesn’t look twelve sometimes. He’s nearly as tall as you—and you’re sixteen. His eyes grow sad and old and his face makes it obvious that he’s seen some pretty cruel stuff. What can you say, though? You live on the streets, sometimes things get rough. He’s heard things, seen things, felt things that no kid should have to see. You like to think you’ve done a pretty good job raising him, but you know you could have done better. The fact that you’re still on the streets and practically starving all the time makes that fact painfully obvious.

Right now, even if he’s frowning at you, you can tell that he’s happy. You push him off you gently and stand up, stretching and cracking the stiffness out of your back.

“Is Grillby’s good with you, kid?” His face brightens immediately as he grins, clambering up and to your side. You’ve never seen a kid look so gleeful at the prospect of digging through trash, but what can you say? The kid likes Grillby’s food.

Papyrus never checks for people that could be outside the places you find to sleep, darting out and bounding up and down while he waits for you to catch up. The kid likes food (spaghetti is his favorite, you think, but you’ve only come across that five or six times) and usually doesn’t care if he’s seen. It’s not the safest lifestyle for someone who lives on the streets, but you never stop him. You’d rather he was happy, anyway. Why spoil the fun things he had when he had so little? Sometimes you debated just calling CPS on yourselves—maybe you’d get separated, but that had to be better than this, right? Most foster homes weren’t bad, anyway.

But you were greedy most of the time, unwilling to even risk it. You did your best to keep Papyrus happy because his happiness came first and yours second. As long as your brother was happy, though, your own happiness was easy enough to maintain.

And hey, you liked Grillby’s, too.

Grillby was a guy you’d spotted several times in your stay in Snowdin. You knew he worked nearly every single day at his restaurant, but you usually just rummaged through his trash and then you’d GTFO faster than he could catch you. You don’t think it’d be the end of the world if he did catch you looking, though. The few times that he had he’d just gone back inside, not saying anything to either of you or letting his gaze linger. After that happened a couple of times, though, you did notice that he started throwing the extra food in separate bins rather than mingling it with the actual trash. That’s probably why you went there usually, when you couldn’t find apple trees to steal from or things discarded on the sides of roads.

You don’t think he’s there today, though. The lights to Grillby’s are all off, but there’s still some food in the bin on the left. You can tell that Undyne’s been here between now and yesterday. She likes his fries the best, but refuses to touch his burgers. The bin is picked clean of fries and all the burgers remain untouched. Alphys was probably with her, because there’s not any fruit, either. Alphys has the strangest liking for fruit, calling dibs on the apples that you bring and tending to bring back berries when she went out searching for food.

You and Papyrus both like the burgers and rolls, though, so you aren’t disappointed to find you’ve arrived after the others. You dig through and grab what you can, using your other hand to tug your little brother out of the view of anyone who walks by and behind the building. He takes his food, chirping a thanks to you before taking a big bite out of his. It’s not a full burger, of course it’s not, but it’s meat wedged in-between two rolls and it’s close enough. It tastes good, anyway.

You wait for Papyrus to finish and you crumple the trash up, throwing it away in the bin on the right so that hopefully Grillby won’t notice his trash has been picked though. Not that he wouldn’t notice the bin on the left being mostly empty, but you’d long since decided that he separated the food and trash so that you could take it, anyway. You’re not complaining, of course. It was the only easy way to get food around here. Even if you’d never even been within twenty feet of the guy, he was still your favorite not-homeless person. Papyrus would always win first place for favorite person, obviously.

You and Papyrus have been staying in the same part of the forest for the better half of two weeks and you’re not particularly fond of staying in one place for too long. Ten days in the same spot is pushing that rule, so you drag Papyrus to the other side of the town. Papyrus had a certain fondness for your ragtag bunch of acquaintances who live in the abandoned house by Waterfall and you usually agree to spend a night with them every few weeks or so. You aren’t much up for seeking out a new place to stay for the next week and give in when he asks again, taking his hand in your own and leading him as you walk. You aren’t sure why you hold his hand when you lead him places, but it reassures you that he’s not going to go bounding off someplace and drawing attention to himself when he gets distracted by a squirrel and he’s not complaining.

You pass a school on the way there and in the courtyard there’s a giant cherry blossom tree and a class receiving a lesson in the pleasant breeze. The woman giving the lesson is tall and wearing a purple dress. She speaks in a soft tone, talking to the class gently as she shows them a book and compares it to several leaves that she has set on the picnic table. The class is all paying the lesson rapt attention, studying the leaves that she points out. They crowd around at something she says, leaving one small boy lingering in the very back and hesitantly watching. She’s tall enough to hand him one of the leaves from where she stands.

You keep walking.

Papyrus keeps a conversation flowing between you. He mostly talks and you mostly listen, but that’s the way that it’s been since he knew enough words to do so.

You take a shortcut to the place where the road becomes old and covered in vines, following it to the abandoned building. Sometimes you think about what the building could have been, if someone hadn’t decided to leave it behind. If someday someone decided to clean off the road, clean up the building…you think it has the potential to be a nice place. You hope no one ever gets the bright idea to do that, though, because you’d all be left without a place to go when it got to freezing temperatures and pouring rain and storms. Besides—you and Papyrus were the only ones who didn’t live in the building all the time, mostly because of your hate for lingering in one place for weeks at a time. Living someplace permanently would drive you mad, which is probably another reason that you would be driven insane if you ended up back in a foster home of any sort.

You can tell everyone’s there today, though, because when you push the door open slowly you hear a loud conversation from one of the rooms on the lower floor. There’s two floors and a basement, but you all try to stay out of the basement. It’s creepy and pitch black and you’re all still struck with the childish worry that something’s lurking down there and waiting for you.

You poke your head into the room where the sound’s coming from. They’re all on the floor with a deck of cards and a fire burning in the fireplace. You raise an eyebrow as Blook looks up at you.

“We found a deck of cards…” he says in a blank voice, looking back down at his hand. Undyne flashes you a grin.

“Yeah! The whole deck’s here, too! All sixty two cards and everything! Who throws out a perfectly good set of cards? Rich people, I tell ya…”

“W-we’re playing a round of…something I c-can’t remember the name to…if y-you want to j-join? If not, that’s okay too…” Alphys gives you a hopeful look, though, and you can’t say no.

“I don’t see why not,” you shrug, glancing at Papyrus. “What do you say to a round of cards, Pap?” He nods his head so ferociously you worry for a moment that it’s going to fall off. He’s never played cards before, you don’t think. There’s plenty of games to play with a deck of cards, though, and you think that it’s something Papyrus’ll enjoy.

You let him go and learn the game from Alphys while you sit between Undyne and Mettaton. Everyone’s here after all. MK is tucked in a corner and his face holds a new bruise. You find it funny sometimes that with all his bruises it looks like he’s always getting into rough fights, when in reality he was just clumsy and had a knack for managing to land on his face.

“Are ya planning on staying here tonight, Sans?” Undyne asks you casually, dealing you a hand.

“Yeah, probably. It’s been a while—I know Paps was dying to see you all.” You reply, picking up your cards and wondering if your hand was good or not. You weren’t even sure what game you were playing.

“Ah, of course the kid was dyin’ to see us. Anyway, I bet _you_ were dying to see us too—you _know_ we’re the reason you’re here.” She flashes you a grin and you’re once again wowed with how sharp her teeth are.

“So humble,” you compliment her with a voice dripping with sarcasm. It’s true, though, and she knows it. You think she gets that even if you don’t say it out loud. Your glad she doesn’t say anything about it, though, even if she does know. “Nah, I’m just here for the food.”

She snorts, putting the stack of cards back on the ground and playing her first card. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The support on the last chapter was perfect--I'd appreciate some more of that love ; )


	3. Nostalgia is a Dirty Liar that Insists Things Were Better than They Seemed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sans really didn't want to be a good person.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wasn't gonna update today but I was in a really good mood because my girlfriend helped me pick out a genderneutral name to try out and see if I like it. So here's this chapter. <3

            You wake up before anyone else at the abandoned building. You’re glad that you chose last night of all nights to stay there, mostly because it ended up getting so cold (in spring, too!) that you would have had to have gone there, anyway.

They’re all asleep in a large clump nearby and your little brother is on the very outskirts of them all. You wake him up, prodding him gently until he stirs. Quietly, very quietly, you stand up and stretch and tilt your head towards the door so that he gets the basic idea that you’re leaving. His face falls a little and you feel bad, but you know that if you wait until everyone else is up you’ll be here all day. You know that they all know you’ll be gone before they wake, though. You always are. It’s Wednesday, anyway, and on Wednesday you meet them at Waterfall to hang out with them, because you usually don’t see them and because Papyrus rather enjoys being around large groups of people, even if you don’t. And hey, you like it, too, you’ll admit.

You both sneak out the door and head to Waterfall. It’s not too far away, taking you fifteen minutes at most to reach, and when you get there you rummage through your bag for your water bottles. They’re older and metal, but they haven’t rusted and they still hold water without leaking a single drop so you haven’t retired them just yet. You dip them into the water, letting them fill up and then screwing the lids on as tightly as you can.

It’s still dawn, but people will start leaving their homes in less than an hour and you don’t want to be out where everyone can see you when that happens. On days like these you usually just find a place to linger until night falls, and though that’ll make today excruciatingly boring you’ll suffer through it if it means not being spotted and having Child Protective Services called on you. Or maybe they’d call Animal Control—you really wouldn’t be too surprised (or offended) at this point. **** You’re not really _animals,_ but you do pick around garbage cans and linger in abandoned buildings and forests. Child Protective Services usually specializes in kids who at least have legal records, which you don’t have. Sometimes you wonder if there’s really a different between the two, though.

You take Papyrus’ hand in your own, leading him away from Waterfall and to the thick patch of woods that are nearby. He hums a little tune on the way there, and you aren’t sure what it is but you recognize it. You think you heard it from Alphys at one point, the song was about a star. The children back at the foster home used to sing it too, so you think it’s a song that’s well-known.

Maybe it’s not, though. Maybe it’s just catchy.

Either way, Papyrus continues to hum it and swing your arms as you walk. You hope he’s not cold—maybe you should have stayed there, just for today? The woods are cold, if not _as_ cold as outside of the woods, but certainly not as warm as in the abandoned building.

You check to see if he’s shivering. He’s not. You ask him if he’s cold. He says he’s not. You still worry that he’s cold. _You’re_ not cold, not really, but you’re also older and you handle cold better, so he could be cold, right?

He tells you again that he’s not cold.

You find the warmest spot in the forest that you can.

Papyrus sits criss-cross in front of one of the trees, leaning against it and rummaging through his backpack. From out of the bag emerges a deck of cards, which he proudly shows you.

“Alphys said that I could take them with me!” He informs you, opening the box gently and sliding the cards out. “And we played a game that I liked and that I was good at and I want to teach it to you.” His voice is hopeful—how are you supposed to say no to that?

“Sure, kid,” you accept the cards that he hands you. “Does this game have a name?”

“Garbage. We each have ten cards and there’s a draw pile in the middle…” he places the cards where they need to go, then shoves some leaves aside to make room for the cards that he puts on the ground in two rows of five. “And then you do this!” He takes his turn, demonstrating for you, then guides you through a turn of your own. You play the game (it takes twelve rounds to finish) and Papyrus annihilates you. By the time he’s got one ace proudly sitting right-side-up in front of him, you’ve still got eight cards in front of you with only four turned over. You can see why he likes this game. You play another three rounds before deciding to show him another card game.

It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that Papyrus loves cards. Maybe that’s because usually there’s not much entertainment around here, that’s probably why he craves the visits to the abandoned building, too. He makes do, finding his only little games to create to play with you, climbing trees and trying to learn how to skip stones in the river. Having an actual deck of cards to play with, though? It’s probably a whole new world for Papyrus.

You’ve played cards before, you aren’t the biggest fan, but you end up agreeing to play the entire day anyway. Papyrus is still ready to play another round when the sun starts setting—and how on Earth the kid can play cards for _hours_ and not get sick of it, you aren’t sure. He still manages to show complaint when you have to stop though, packing them back up with care and placing them in a little pocket of the bag. You’re pretty sure the only reason that he agreed was because you would get to see the Eights, actually.

You stop on the way there to grab something to eat, there’s an apple tree on the way to Waterfall—well, on _a_ way to Waterfall. It takes longer and includes a detour through a neighborhood and the park, but you’re willing to waste a little bit of time to get apples. Your stomachs growling, anyway.

So you both make a pitstop and Papyrus shimmies up the tree and tosses the reddest apples down to you to store in the backpacks. He climbs back down, selecting his favorite and biting into it loudly. You pick the bag back up and take an apple of your own along with your brother’s free hand, walking again.

The park this time of year is lush and green, yellow flowers bloom all over the place. Papyrus is careful not to step on any as you walk. While you walk you tell him stories, little detailed commentaries about things that have happened and stories that you’ve heard and still remember. He listens, crunching on his apple loudly while doing so.

And no one’s here this late at night.

Usually.

Tonight there’s two kids sitting on a bench, swinging their feet. They’re holding hands, shivering a little, and one of them looks hurt. You want to skirt around them. You want to ignore them—you really do. _You don’t even know them._ It would never impact you if you chose to leave right then and never come back, because _you don’t even know them._ ****

‘They’re just kids at the park—look at those clothes, those are expensive clothes, of course they have a home.’ You try to tell yourself. It isn’t working, there’s no one else in this whole park. They’re alone. You offer them a little wave. Papyrus takes this as an OK to introduce himself.

“Hi!” He greets them enthusiastically. “I’m Papyrus and you look cold.”

“We’re waiting for Mom to come back,” one of them whispers. The other nudges them.

“She’ll be here soon,” the other chimes in, their voice defensive. “She said she’d be back soon.”

“And how long has it been?” You ask, raising an eyebrow. _Goddammit, don’t start caring about how long it’s been since their mom left!_

 “She left this morning to get something from the _car_ ,” the angry one replies. “She’s not coming back.”

“Shut _up_ , Chara! Shut up, she said she’s coming back, she’ll be here!” They’re squabbling in front of you, fists up and clenched. You hold up a placating hand. 

You aren’t sure what to say—“That’s nice, have fun waiting for you mom,” doesn’t sound much better than, “she’s been gone all day and either has a really good reason for not coming back that you should be worried about…or she isn’t coming back at all. Either way, sucks for you.” You don’t say either of those things. Instead you offer the shorter one a hand.

“You do look kinda cold, kid,” her warm hand encases your own. It’s not much bigger than Papyrus’. You bite your tongue when you think that—comparing them to Papyrus is gonna make it a whole lot harder to ditch them. Shit, don’t compare them to Papyrus, don’t do it—“We’re going someplace warm, wanna come with us for a night? There’s food, you could get warmed up. We’ll bring you back here to wait for your mom, don’t worry about that.” You’re hoping that wording it like a kidnapping creep will help to drive them away. It must not be working—they look like they’re debating it.

“...we’ll come back here to wait?”

“Yeah, kid, you will.” The little one slides off the bench, staring up at you.

“I’m Frisk,” the kid whispers. “That’s Chara. They’re nicer than they pretend to be.”

You really don’t want to be a good person. You _really_ don’t want to help these kids out. You _really_ want to just leave them sitting where they are, leave them there. You really want to leave them to fend for themselves, tell them to suck it up and figure out how to survive on their own like the rest of you did. You don’t do that. Instead you wait for the other kid, Chara, to get up more reluctantly than Frisk. Instead you take Papyrus’ hand in your free one. Instead you watch Frisk take Chara’s hand. Instead you start walking with kids in tow from both of your hands.

You take them to the abandoned building. When you walk in and shut the door the heat greets you with a rush.

“There’s food here, blankets, too. I’ll get you some in a minute.” You tell them, dragging Papyrus with you to the living room, where he immediately gets the deck of cards out of his backpack and starts up a game with MK.

You interrupt Undyne’s greeting before she even says anything. “I found some kids at a park. They’re, ah, they’re standing in the entryway.”

“What, like strays? Tell me they don’t have rabies.”

“Hey, they’ve gotta be younger than Papyrus. They looked cold. They said they’re waiting for their mom or some shit. I can be a good person when I want to.” Undyne rolls her eyes, standing up. You take the silence as a victory. You’re the slightest bit concerned about Undyne and children, but she’s good enough with your brother.

You trail her out like a puppy, watching her as she studies the two kids.

“How old are ya?” She asks them, squinting.

“Twelve.”

 Papyrus is twelve.

“Why are you shivering? You’re cold? Why were you in the cold?”

“Because our mom said she’d be back, so we’re waiting! And when she comes back we’ll all go home, it’ll be fine!”

God, just like Papyrus, being optimistic about shitty situations.

The look Undyne gives you makes you want to shrug. She _knows damn well_ why you brought them here. She knows _damn well_ why you haven’t kicked ‘em out yet.

You’ve got a weakness for kids like them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tell me what you thought in the comments below ! Feel free to point out any errors you found in the story, I always appreciate it because I'm too lazy to go over it and check the chapters. I'll update soon enough, I've got a lead in a play that means I don't have free time until 6pm and I've got the Caucus to go to tomorrow, so I'll update before Thursday. Thank you all for your support! ((The stars are there for a reason not pertaining to this, I was just too lazy to take them out so I could post the chapter.))

**Author's Note:**

> Once again, if you did enjoy leave a kudos or a comment below. Thank you <3


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